is there anything you've never told anyone before? anything you need to let out?

i want to die.

and?

and i want to fucking kill myself, that's what. and if there was anything you bitches could do for me, i'd tell you to go ahead and do it. but there isn't.

taehyung-

there isn't anything you can do! so cut the bullshit and let me die!

-end-

"that was his first therapy session?"

"yeah, from when he was fifteen," hoseok said.

"and he refused to go to more sessions after that?"

"yeah."

°

"taehyung, i'm going to try to learn more about you."

taehyung's eyes stayed focused on the table beside yoongi, and yoongi wondered to himself why the boy would rather look at a white table than himself. was he that uncomfortable?

"clearly," taehyung said, his deep voice leaving his lips with a more aggressive nature than usual. "isn't that what you've always been trying to do? pry and pull me apart? to 'help' me?"

had yoongi known the boy for longer, he would have described his tone as something that reflected betrayal and disappointment. but he could only say for sure that his voice showed resentment and fear.

betrayal? he could only say possibly.

"taehyung, is there anything you need to let out? that you've never really told anyone before?"

i want to fucking kill myself, that's what. and if there was anything you bitches could do for me, i'd tell you to go ahead and do it. but there isn't.

"i'm not sure," taehyung muttered. "i'd say i want to die, but you all already know that about me, huh?"

"yes, we do."

there isn't anything you can do! so cut the bullshit and let me die!

"this question sounds familiar."

"it should."

the sound of air vents and distant voices came crashing down upon them again, and yoongi yearned once more for the sound of taehyung's voice to fill the room. he wanted him to get better, and he wanted to help. and how could he possibly help a boy he didn't know?

"i avoid mirrors."

this is a start, yoongi thought. and it was.

"and why is that?"

taehyung seemed to hesitate, as if the truth was too heavy for him to heave from his chest on his own. so yoongi gave him a slight, subtle nod and took taehyung's hand in his own, rubbing slow, gentle circles into the boy's thin fingers.

"i'm scared that what i feel inside is real."

"what do you feel inside?"

taehyung was shaking now, quick and harsh tremors bringing his body back and forth.

"a monster."

he breathed.

it was a heavy breath.

as if his words were all within the one breath, and as if he was breathing in his words and thoughts all at once.

"it has ugly eyes and ugly teeth, and it's huge and disgusting. and its every feature is everything i hate about myself, and everything bad i do and all of the self destructive things i've ever done to make myself feel okay," his eyes were filling with tears, and yoongi cried with him. "it's ugly. it's all of my insecurities and all of my wrongs and it's... it's me." the tears spilled from his eyes, quickly cascading down his pink cheeks like rivers dusting over grasslands. yoongi swept away the tears like a drought sweeping away rivers.

"it's a monster and it's me, and i don't want to see it real."

when yoongi had first met the boy, he had thought that he was closed off and hostile. he had thought of him as angry and too hurt to be good anymore, and he had doubted that he would ever be able to help him through.

but it was right there and then, in the tiny white room with white walls and gray windows that he realized that the boy was just scared. he realized that the boy was just a child that had been too hurt to see the good in the world, not too hurt to be good. he realized that all the boy had needed was a hand to hold and a person to cry with and a heart that listened, because it seemed that no one had really truly listened to him for a long, long time.

and so yoongi listened.

he listened as the boy spoke, and then listened as the boy cried. he listened to the tears and the soft sobs, and he listened as the boy breathed.

when taehyung finally stopped crying and sat back in his bed with his eyes now focused on yoongi's face, yoongi spoke to him.

"taehyung, you aren't a monster."

taehyung bit his lip.

"your demons are monsters, but they aren't what make you a person," he said. "your demons are your monsters, but you're taehyung. and taehyung isn't a monster, is he?"

"i guess not," taehyung said. "but then what is he?"

"to be generic and realistic, a boy," yoongi smiled. "but he could be anything else. a metaphor, a flower, a color?"

"i could be gray."

"yes, you could."

"if people were colors, i'd be gray and you would be yellow."

"yellow?"

"you're bright and happy and thoughtful."

taehyung grinned and leaned back farther, resting his head on his pillow.

"is gray spelled with an 'e' or an 'a?'"

yoongi shrugged.

"it probably works either way."

"i like it with an a."

"why?"

"because aerosol starts with an 'a.'"

yoongi remained silent, not yet understanding what taehyung meant.

he noticed that about taehyung; how he spouted random sentences and random thoughts sometimes. his voice seemed to have no structure, like it was a free and liberated, and left to stray away from what was expected.

he would have asked what he meant, but he knew taehyung would keep going. so he waited.

"aerosol disappears."

he closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them again, allowing his long eyelashes to flutter upwards like little butterflies.

"i want to disappear."